Happy Chinese New Year?
What's Chinese New Year?
It's a traditional festival celebrated by Chinese, for Chinese, with Chinese. There're reunion dinners on the eve, "bai nian's" and "kai nian", loosely translated to "visiting" and "opening of the year". And there's the highly anticipated hongbaos. The celebratory mood lingers while we paint our towns and houses red with traditional decorations. We use the festive season as a reason to indulge in gambling, hoping lady luck picked us this new year. We visit each other's houses, exchanging oranges and well-wishes, eating the festive foods and growing fat.
But there is the remote possibility that, insofar we enjoy the lovable break, it really isn't anymore than, that - a break. And for some of the unlucky ones (read: me), we may find a break in our break. Be it work commitments, family commitments, friend commitments, the break doesn't seem like a break after all. We don't really allow ourselves to rest, do we? Or maybe we aren't the least cognizant of any significance in that.
I don't have many relatives in Singapore. And for the two relatives that we do have in Singapore, we barely maintain contact; the animosity really makes me wonder how thick blood is. For the record, I don't even know my cousin's name. Happy Chinese New Year? I hardly see a significance in that, so little that I can't help but feel envy at times, at the families who are enjoying a nice get-together, feasting and talking like they've not met in months. Maybe that's why they call it a "reunion dinner".
Then again, I don't see it happening to me. Do I want it? Yes. No. I don't know. I never really knew my relatives, so reunion dinners represents to me a queer concoction of anticipation, fear, and disappointment. Anticipation in hope that I can get to know them. Fear of knowing them. And disappointment when I realise we've all grown too far apart to ever get to know one another. How does it feel like having a cousin you're close to?
I want to have those feelings.
But I'll never have them.
